I am about to begin a build of the USS Samuel B Roberts in the FRAM I configuration from the 1966 time frame. An old friend of mine asked if I could do this build for him because his father served on her during her Vietnam deployment. He wants to give it to his father when it is completed. I will be using the following kit for this build:

ISW 1/350 USS Johnston DD-821 Gearing FRAM I 1968

I got the kit yesterday and starting looking through the directions/parts, etc. The kit came with a nice PE set for her and some brass rod as well. I ordered some brass barrels for the two 5" twin turrets and will be picking up some plastic rod and other miscellaneous supplies to help detail the kit. Luckily, the kit came with decals for all of the Gearing Class destroyers so I am good there.

This will be my first resin kit and I am excited to get working on her. I will probably be asking some questions about different things as I progress with the build. Please feel free to toss out any tips and/or advice for me. I will get some pics of the kit and such posted in a day or so and hopefully be able to start building within a week.

Spent about 45 minutes last evening working on the main hull section. Did some sanding, scraping, cleaning up, etc. I washed the hull all up and over the next couple days, need to fill a couple of seams and fill a couple dimples and then sand it up a bit more. Hope to get the hull section primed by this weekend.

Finished filling, sanding, and cleaning up the hull yesterday. I got it all primed up today and will grab a couple pics of it tomorrow after it has fully dried. I hope to start working on the hull and main deck paintwork tomorrow or Monday.

Well I got the boot topping painted on the hull and then my furnace at home died Friday night. Still no heat until at least tomorrow or possibly Wednesday. I have a couple of space heaters to keep the place heated a little but it is too cold to paint. Hope to get some done later this week if all goes well.

Got the heat working again and got a little more work done. Boot topping and bottom painted. I also started working on cleaning up some of the forward and amidships superstructure parts. I hope to get the rest of the hull and main deck painted this weekend.

I had a little more cleaning up to do on the hull and hope to paint some tonight. I was working on the bridge and noticed that the walls on the port side were mostly broken away. I removed what was left and began cleaning it up. Here is a pic of what it looked like after I took the walls off. After I removed them I cleaned it up quite a bit with some sanding and such. I then reconstructed the walls with some styrene sheet. There was also some filling and additional sanding needed on the bridge that I did last night as well. Tonight I hope to finish cleaning that section up and prime the superstructure pieces.

I drilled out the hawse pipe holes on the hull and opened up the deck on the bow for the anchor chains. I also got more work completed on fixing the bridge section. I still need to do a little more filling and sanding on it but it is looking much better now.

Got the hull painting finished up along with the main decks and some of the superstructure parts/sections. I also got the bridge section repaired and painted up minus a few minor touch-ups here and there. Ready to start assembling some of the deck sections in the next day or so.

I got the forward and amidships deck sections mounted. They need a little touching up and there are a couple gaps that need filled. I filled the gaps after I took the pics so I will be sanding and doing the paint touch up on those areas tonight. I will also be mounting the bridge tonight. I began doing some detail work on the superstructure (painting the fire hoses and such) and will be working on that more tonight as well.

Been working on some of the details. Got most of the stairs done and installed. Primed and painted the main guns, director, and another small superstructure section. The director in the kit had the small pieces on the sides broken so I made new ones from plastic rod. Still need to touch up where the stairs mount and such. I have also been working on cleaning up the stacks. They are primed, have initial paint, and have been drilled out on top.